Welcome to my website! My research group focuses on solving all sorts of pavement engineering and materials related problems. Our research spans from micro and nanoscale materials science of asphalt binders and other viscoelastic materials all the way up to solving large scale, smart, and sustainable pavement infrastructure problems.
Recent News
06-20-2024 – Congratulations to Renan Santos Maia who published two excellent papers to start the summer! One paper, along with recent graduate Yujia Lu, explored the use of porous asphalt in Chicago and why it hasn’t succeeded yet, and the other paper published with our colleagues from Brazil explores the link between traffic safety and the pavement surface including aggregate type. You can find both papers here:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10298436.2024.2345138
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214509524004017
05-20-2024 – As we finish the semester, there are many exciting updates from our research group. Yujia Lu successfully defended his PhD in April and just graduated. He will continue his journey at UIUC as a Postdoctoral Scholar. Congratulations Yujia!
We also continue to publish our latest research findings, which you can find below:
Bayesian Neural Network for asphalt concrete dynamic modulus prediction (led by Babak Asadi): https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10298436.2023.2270569
Prediction of asphalt binder elastic recovery from MSCR (led by Babak Asadi):
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0950061823038722
10-16-2023 – I am excited to share that our latest article on multiscale analysis and rejuvenator dosing for asphalt binders and mixtures has been published in the journal of Construction and Building Materials. As we continue to make progress in this exciting area of study, we investigated rejuvenation considering both effects of asphalt binder replacement (ABR) and re-aging of rejuvenated materials. Our analysis involved molecular, binder, and mixture scales. Thank you to Yujia Lu and Renan Santos Maia for their hard work on this project, and to BASF, SE and the Smart Transportation Infrastructure Initiative at UIUC for supporting this work. You can read our article for free for the next 50 days at the following link:
https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1hx3o3O1E1UWUq
08-25-2023 – Check our our new article in Construction and Building Materials on the latest findings using the poker chip test on a set of novel modified asphalt binders. We explored rate effects and the relationship between nonlinear rutting and cracking tests, advancing closer to our goal of balanced binder design. Congratulations to Abhliash Vyas and Yudi Wang, and thanks to our collaborator, Ekkehard Jahns from BASF, SE. You can download our work for free for the next 50 days here: https://authors.elsevier.com/a/1heq-_LcXPlsGY
05-31-2023 – A new article is available from our group in ASCE’s Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering. This paper focuses on the relationship between nonlinear and failure properties of aged asphalt binders and their microscopic evolution using Environmental Scanning Electron Microscopy. Thanks to Yujia Lu and Babak Asadi for their hard work on this article.
05-15-2023 – Congratulations to Abhilash Vyas of our group for completing his Masters Thesis and receiving his M.S. in Civil Engineering on Saturday! Abhilash will continue working with our group on his Ph.D. beginning Summer 2023.
01-31-2023 – Our recent report in collaboration with Prof. Nishant Garg’s group on self-healing asphalt binder and Portland cement is now available. Thank you to the Illinois Center for Transportation’s Smart Transportation Infrastructure Initiative for funding this work!
12-09-2022 – Our new publication in Construction and Building Materials as part of the Global Consortium on Antioxidants in Asphalt Binder was published. Check it out here!
12-14-2021 – Thanks to all from my research group for a wonderful semester! We will all be attending the TRB Annual Meeting in January 2022 in Washington, DC, and look forward to seeing many of our friends there! Wishing you all a great holiday season.